(This is a part of Cobrapost’s Operation Shuddhikaran focussing on RSS’ alleged role in trafficking tribal girls to convert them to Hinduism)
The moment we tell Bina and Jyotika that we have come from Delhi Swami Narayan Mandir where the girls brought from Assam stayed for the night, they begin to talk. “Wo Korbi ji … (Oh that Korbi ji),” exclaims Jyotika.
Bina adds: “Wo jab Delhi gaye the toh aapke yahan thahre the … hum bachon ko lene gaye the … Main aur doosri ladki gayi thi (When we had gone to Delhi to receive the children, we had stayed there [at Swami Narayan Mandir] … I and another woman colleague had gone there).”
As our conversation around the mission of Ghar Wapasi progresses, Bina confirms the events of that day: “Yes … I know that they had stayed that night after the children had been rounded up at the station … then someone from the Sangh had come there … he was from Gujarat.”
She continues: “That evening when problem arose at the station at Delhi after Korbiji had brought children to send them to Gujarat, she too had stayed at the Swami Narayan Mandir.”
Jyotika is sharp and asks the Cobrapost reporter if he too is from the RSS and what responsibilities the Sangh has charged him with. Yes, I am a bird of the same flock, our reporter tells her, and working on the same mission. According to Jyotika one Vijay Sharma is working on this mission in Punjab. Here we also come to know that Korbi is a Guahati-based Pracharika of the RSS. Jyotika is heading the mission in Patiala district.
How many girls you have brought here from Assam? Bina tells us: “Humari toh aath thi apni … apni chhutti gayi thi … chaar bache aur aye the (Among them eight were from our own hostel who had gone home for vacation. Four more children have joined us).”
Catch them young is this mission’s catch phrase, and we get the feel of how they condition the young, impressionable minds when Jyoitka explains us: “It is easier to make smaller girl children understand but when they reach at the age of, say, eighth, ninth, tenth standard it is not easy to make them understand something. But it is easy to bring them into our religion. You have to understand what they want to say and then speak to them ….”
Bina chips in: “There are many children who get tortured at their Christian mission, they don’t take much time and effort to set[tle] down with us.”
While Jyotika tells us many pracharikas were working on this missions under a sanchalika on national level, Bina tells how the senior pracharikas work to bring the Christian children: “It is the senior pracharikas who bring Christian children to us.”
These children are conditioned in such way that they follow all the rituals and the ways of the Sangh wherever they go, even if they choose to leave its fold. Jyotika puts it philosophically: “It is like the beads have slipped into the garland and then if they go back to their fold they will sure remember these days, the times [they have spent here], what they used to do in the morning and what they used to do in the evening.”
Now, it was pertinent for us to know who the parents were and if they knew where their daughters were. Therefore, the Cobrapost reporter visited Nakheda village in Chirang district and met the parents or relatives of Sushmita, Sunita, Surgi Mardi, Lukhi Murmo, Motila Kisko and Sunila, who the RSS workers had lured away with promise of cash and free education.
Read Next: “The Vishwa Hindu Parishad man from Devsiri took away our girls.”
